Anxiety, Crossing Our Bridges When We Come to Them and a Plate of Shrimp?

The Story Bridge crossing the
Brisbane River in my hometown

Panorama showing the location of the Story Bridge (left)
relative to the Brisbane CBD

I've been reading Matt Haig's two wonderful books on anxiety and depression, not that I have ever suffered that much from either to the point that Matt details in his two books on the subject.
Another Dark Story to My Favourite Bridge

The rainbow bridge?

Page 21 from Matt Haig's wonderful little
 book 'Notes on a Nervous Planet'

Thanks to Marie for the picture from her blog post

Ironically, I was working on this post during the week and while it was going to be about my probably excessive and unrealistic fear of real sharks, swimming in deep sea water and a synchronicity I had before buying Matt's "Nervous Planet" book in Byron Bay, the title for the post I had already written as a metaphor before the Italian bridge collapse in the media this week. 

Synching in the Submarine?
I had spent Thursday afternoon in Byron Bay sitting under a big hoop-pine tree and staring out to sea while listening to a busker and the waves crashing in behind him, but every now and then I would look at the people swimming (in winter?!) just off the sand on a beach I knew was the scene of at least one fatal and very unfortunate shark attack, which I wrote a post about when I had some friends out here from England -
Aussie Sync Summit ... Kind of. And You Just Couldn't Make This Stuff Up If You Tried

We're going to need a bigger boat?

Ironically, I've been a life member of the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks Rugby League Club since the mid 1980s and started following them around age 13.

My 2016 GF tattoo with more room for more years:-)

I think the difference between my anxieties and depression and people like Matt's is that while I am scared about how I could die, I'm not scared of being "dead".
I'm a firm believer in destiny and that doesn't mean it's "all good" either.
I have no idea just how much control we do have over our own destiny, but I like to think that I do have some control, although I feel a lot of points do seem to be fixed for some reasons bigger than I can imagine from my little life viewpoint.

Now here is my little Matt Haig/plate of shrimp - cosmic coincidence story from my Thursday/Friday in Byron Bay.

I was walking around the streets of Byron Bay Thursday afternoon looking for something to eat before heading to the bookshop to buy some books and then head back to my motel room and watch TV/football.
I've been on a strict non-dairy vegetarian diet only really breaking it last Christmas when feeding on my favourite non-vegetarian food of all time pretty much ... prawns, or as Americans might call them ... shrimp.

I came across a fish shop on my way to the book shop, which I wrote about in a recent post -
Bon Voyage?

The books I ended up buying Thursday
afternoon in Byron Bay

I had only planned on buying
  'Eggshell Skull' really

The fish shop owners were mad keen Rabbitohs supporters, but they had shark jaws on the walls of the shop and a shark painted on the window with the words "bite me" coming out of the shark's mouth.
I wanted to go in and have a chat to the owners, as I was going for the Rabbitohs to beat the Storm on Friday night, although I would be out at the Byron Theatre on Friday night while the game was on, so I wouldn't see it live.
I stood looking in the fish shop window thinking that I could hardly go in and have a chat about footy and not buy anything because I was on a vegetarian diet, so I started to talk myself into breaking my diet and getting half a kilo of prawns and take them back to my motel room.

Then I stood there thinking of all kinds of reasons why I should or shouldn't buy the prawns.
And while there were quite a few reasons for and against buying them, the one true fear that rang in my head was what if I got food poisoning from eating these prawns and had to miss the three days of the writers festival?

This became my overwhelming reason not to buy them, and I had no idea where it was coming from, since I had never been sick from eating prawns in my life, and while I have heard of people getting sick from other seafood like oysters and shellfish, I don't ever recall hearing of anyone getting sick from prawns.  

Who would get sick eating prawns?
Matt (Haig) would, that's who:-)

I didn't buy the prawns because of my fear of getting sick and missing the festival, so I didn't bother going in to chat footy with the owners, since I wasn't going to buy anything in there and I thought that would be rude.
So I ended up buying a veggie burger after going to the bookstore -
Synching in the Submarine?

The thing is that I knew nothing about Matt Haig and had read none of his books at the time, so on Friday my jaw(s) nearly hit the floor when Matt mentioned his fear of food poisoning and the one time he did get food poisoning from eating ... of all things ... prawns.
Matt Haig on the anxiety of modern life

Matt Haig being interviewed by Sarah Kanowski
Friday at the BWF

From Carl Jung's 'The Red Book'

I think we're gonna need a bigger boat

I was glad that I listened to my gut on Thursday night and didn't have the prawns, not because I could have gotten sick and spent the day back in my motel room crouched over the toilet both ways (although that too), but because I would have missed out on this great "plate of shrimp" coincidence story.

Plate of Shrimp/Prawns and the Raw Prawn/Trickster

Many a true metaphor is said in jest ... or something along those lines.
And now we do have to worry about crossing our real life bridges when we come to them it seems.
Predictive Programming ... or

Looking at that 'Jaws' poster all of these years it only just occurred to me that the W in the movie poster can be viewed as a subliminal set of teeth.

Keep your arm away from that W lady and ...

There is a lot to be afraid of in this world if we let our minds wander/wonder, but I don't think a bigger boat will solve much when it comes to anxieties. 

But maybe a gentler boat will?-)

Sleep tight and don't let the metaphorical sharks of life bite.

Or the aliens for that matter;-)

Life is a gamble, but just how much of a gamble is anyone's guess.

But I wouldn't risk being on Facebook too often when it comes to gambling with your mental and physical health.

Facebook For Dummies?
It is a nervous world to live in, but it pays to cross our bridges when we come to them and try not to think too hard about it when we do.
Social/Media?